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Sunday, June 5, 2016

Gilbert Doctorow — News flash: Europe is brain dead and on the drip

In what follows I will describe an event of this kind which was held in the European Parliament building on Tuesday, 31 May. Though unexceptional in its format and in its attendees, it illustrates perfectly how and why Europe is sleepwalking its way into World War III with Russia, or why, as I say more colorfully in the heading, the Old Continent is ‘brain dead,’ just no one has bothered to publicize this fact.

Gilbert Doctorow | European Coordinator of The American Committee for East West Accord Ltd.

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The Saker hears the drumbeats of war. On this week’s Solari Report, Saker and I discuss his latest, A Russian Warning co-authored with Dmitri Orlov and Dr. Eugenia V Gurevich:

“We, the undersigned, are Russians living and working in the USA. We have been watching with increasing anxiety as the current US and NATO policies have set us on an extremely dangerous collision course with the Russian Federation, as well as with China. Many respected, patriotic Americans, such as Paul Craig Roberts, Stephen Cohen, Philip Giraldi, Ray McGovern and many others have been issuing warnings of a looming Third World War. But their voices have been all but lost among the din of a mass media that is full of deceptive and inaccurate stories that characterize the Russian economy as being in shambles and the Russian military as weak—all based on no evidence. But we—knowing both Russian history and the current state of Russian society and the Russian military, cannot swallow these lies. We now feel that it is our duty, as Russians living in the US, to warn the American people that they are being lied to, and to tell them the truth. And the truth is simply this: If there is going to be a war with Russia, then the United States will most certainly be destroyed, and most of us will end up dead.”

The Saker gives us an update on the Ukraine and the impact, along with events in the Middle East and US and European sanctions, on the Russian economy. We cover the ancient history of tensions between Russia and the Western nations and revisit why the Russian people are so supportive of Putin’s efforts to resist accommodation. Saker suggests some of the actions we can each take to reduce the chances of war.Our discussion raises important questions about the shift to a multi-polar world. If the US offers countries two options – submit to multinational corporate control or be destroyed – it is only a matter of time before the world shifts into a deflationary spiral or war. Where are the incentives to cooperate and honor agreements that are the basis of global economic growth?

Behind the bravado, they know it. Yeltsin provided a chance to disarm the Russians or make them allies, but Washington blew that opportunity. By then, China had begun its economic rise. Just as there is no chance of returning the atomic weapons genie to its bottle, the global economic genie is here to stay.